Conventionally, there has been a commodity sales data processing apparatus which reads commodity information from an RFID tag (RFID chip) attached to each commodity, and carries out sales registration and checkout processing based on the commodity information. For example, there has been proposed a reading apparatus which collectively reads commodity information by placing a commodity or a shopping basket in which commodities are housed on a checkout counter in which a flat antenna is arranged.
In recent years, a commodity sales data processing apparatus (also referred to as a self-checkout apparatus, a self-checkout POS (Point Of Sales) apparatus or a self-registration apparatus) which is used to carry out sales registration and checkout processing of commodity by a customer himself/herself has appeared. In general, in such a self-checkout apparatus, the customer scans a code symbol attached to a commodity through a scanner to carry out a commodity sales registration.
Incidentally, in a case in which the reading apparatus which reads RFID tags is applied to the self-checkout apparatus, the customer reads the RFID tag by himself/herself. However, in the constitution of the conventional reading apparatus, since no explicit operation of the customer himself/herself is accompanied while the reading processing is started at the time of placing the shopping basket on the checkout counter, there is a problem that the customer is confused about the timing of beginning. Because a space where the reading of RFID tags is carried out by the flat antenna and a space where a customer and the like exist are continuous, there is a possibility that an operation such as taking out a commodity from the shopping basket or adding a commodity to the shopping basket during the reading process is carried out. In such cases, the reading apparatus probably cannot read the commodities in the shopping basket correctly, which may hinder the efficient processing.